Yeah, I'm excited to get into it and learn a little bit more
about Chumba USA. But first I always like to start off by learning
a little bit more about you as a cyclist, what your background
is.

Oh, for sure, man. I've, since college started, started I guess
back in 2002, got really into believe or not like more urban riding
as you as you would when you go to school, but then quickly fell in
love with mountain biking. And, , I think every bike that I started
off with was probably single speed and, , a lot of fun. And
initially they're just building up all the bikes myself. And, ,
what was interesting is I was in school so I didn't have any money
and , by methodology behind everything was like, all right, well as
long as I continue to build bikes and ride them, I'm going to force
myself to learn how to do everything there is to maintain them and
never take my bike to a shop. , and so I started out doing that and
went through from, you know, building a bike from scratch, building
the wheels to, , breaking all kinds of stuff and writing all
contents of different bikes.

And where were you doing that?

It was all in, in Richmond, Virginia initially. So I was going
to, Virginia Commonwealth University and I was doing a bunch of
like, a bunch of work with their outdoor adventure program they're
doing out there, leadership classes and leading trips and like
Whitewater kayaking, rock climbing, , , that back country hiking,
all that kind of stuff. So just being outside was like really
important and you finding bikes as a way to get farther out into
spaces was even early on, a lot of fun and kind of help develop my
passion for it overall. And then everywhere I've moved since I've
always just a boy, he's just written, obviously everywhere. We've
gone a long time up in Philly and then down down in Texas. I've
been here about nine years now.but when I was in Philly, I was also
working in shops while I was also in graduate school and then I
worked in shops here in Texas for a while managing a shops and then
transitioned over to working with Chumba.

How long have you been working with the team?

So I've been here, , about five years now. And, , I, I was
brought on early on, , from, from when our friend Aaron, ,
purchased the company, , to help him rebrand and recreate all the
new designs that we have. , so about five years I was working in a
bike shop managing that, , in a local area. And he, he brings some
bikes by for me to check out. We just started talking and started
collaborating on ideas, would come by and get my opinions on
things. And then I quickly, we kind of developed a relationship and
he invited me to come on and help them kind of get, get things
going. , and then what's interesting is, , you know, mark our frame
builder myself, , over time. And like we, we developed a really,
and, , last year in April, , our families, , and our, and mark and
I got together and we actually purchased a Chumba and wonderlust
gear from Erin. And so now the four of us, mark, myself and our two
wives more, Michelle, , are run and on both companies.

Awesome. So the Chumba brand, it goes back prior to that five
years. When did it originally start?

Start originally like in the 90s. , and interesting thing about
it is Chumba has previously had like a, you know, a reputation for
like big, burly, like downhill mountain bikes and they certainly
had a huge involvement in the development of that end of the sport
early on. , but what's interesting is like the very, very roots of
the company, , we're amazing, , making all custom bicycles. So, ,
you know, when we took over the company, like I found design files
for cross bikes and commuter bikes and track bikes and rode frames
during bikes, like, , all types of things. , and doing more
research just found that, you know, early on it was more about just
making a whole range of, of options for people. , what's kind of
cool and like where we connect to their original story of the
company is just that, you know, the initial owner and a founder of
the company, I tend to annoy, , he was making everything , here and
the in the US and one of the guiding principles of the company
early on was just to make really durable product.

, and everything was raised, tested by team. So real world
tested in actual applications where the bike is meant to be
written. I'm just having a really clear understanding of what the
use of the bike was going to be in a clear understanding of , kind
of the forces and forces and kind of the writing goals, the people
who are going to exert onto the bikes to make sure they're going to
perform over a long period of time. So we've kind of connected to
that and tried to maintain that approach. , you know, that company
eventually moved, moved to some overseas market as a, as Ted sold
it to one of his other employees. , and we've, you know, obviously
completely done the opposite and brought it all back to a in USA
and, and Baden now's manufacturing.

So that first sort of set of products that you guys introduced,
was it the hard tail mountain bike side of things?

Yes. So when I first came on, we were working on the Ursa, which
is 29 plus bike. This Stella, which is a 29er, , at the time, 27 to
27 plus wasn't even a thing.and then the Rastro, which was like a
long travel, aggressive hard tail. , and, , we kind of launched the
company with those three bikes is like the foundation, , our team,
our riders and ourselves, you're realizing shit. And, , mountain
biking, , durance racing cross country. , and then we quickly
developed a, just, you know, my background from all the years
working in the outdoor industry also, , getting really interested
in bike packing. And, and our team was really pivotal in that, like
especially with the launch of the, the earth, the twin add plus
back early on we had a team writers take it overseas to , to
Iceland's early on and do like a huge trip to get feedback on a
prototype. , and then we quickly just kind of saw the value in, you
know, product testing that way to put the bikes. So you're really
hard challenging like ultra race events or backpacking trips just
to get feedback from the riders. I mean you spend there really
extended amount of time, like continuously on one bike. , you can
really easily sauce out the, the good qualities and bad qualities
and improved prototype versus just like a ride here and there.

Yeah, that was one of the reasons I was really excited to talk
to you today because I feel like a lot of the conversations I have
around gravel cycling, we're talking about bringing road cyclists
into gravel and Chumba as a company. It's clear from your roots is
so much on the mountain bike side in the bike packing side, which
is how I yeah, and that's how I originally got interested in the
notion of gravel riding. I was following a lot of the big bike
packing races and just really intrigued by adventure riding in
general. , that gravel riding just kind of fell out of that
passion. I wasn't able in my life to carve out a lot of time for
bike packing trips, but I was able to, you know, hit the dirt every
day. I ride a bike around here and grabbing a gravel bike just made
it more exciting and enabled me to link different trails and roads
together that made everything in my backyard seem new again. Given
that MTB influence, when did gravel bike frame design start to come
into play for Chumba and what did it mean? Obviously not coming
from a road plus perspective, you're coming from a kind of a, a
downsized mountain bike perspective.

How did it influence the design of the Terrlingua?

Well, it's, it's Kinda interesting because I mean, well it does
have, while we do have like our roots as a company and not bike, ,
heritage and design, , mark, our frame builder was a long time, ,
custom road builders as well. And then we all also ride road. So, I
mean, it's not like a totally foreign thing to us, but what's
unique, , coming from us in this way is like a lot of companies
that are like a mountain bike company that moved into, I grappled
like design, they don't always do it with the homework. Traditional
cyclocross, excellent crown on the bike. , we really wanted to make
a bike that was a tried and true gravel bikes could kind of
performing like a wide array of things. We didn't want to make a
mountain bike that you could write on it. Travel. We felt like we
kind of already had that, , with the Stella, like if you want a
flat bar gravel bike, you can, you can do that.

We wanted to make a real, , in our opinion you know, are real
gravel bikes, you know, suited for use of drop bars and a
traditional axle crown on a fork, , versus just like a, a total
monster cross, , type of vehicle for someone to use. , so in terms
of where the design concept came from, , we had so many of our team
riders specifically requesting a one bikes that they could train on
for the mountains, season bikes that they could raise cyclocross on
bikes so they could raise gravel events on. , we've seen just a
huge trend, you know, with customers and ourselves and, , you know,
initially like just feedback from the team that, you know, people
wanted to spend less time training on the road, more time, ,
getting lost on gravel roads and taking advantage of, , all the new
tire sizes that were coming out and they wanted to do it on a bike
that was, you know, built around it.

So initially it came out as like, well, I mean our team is
asking for this, which is usually a good sign that customers will
also respond and, and, and want to see it. So, so that really the
initial need for the bike kind of came out of, of the team
requesting it to be made. , then we definitely start seeing like a,
an increase in customers. Like just, just mentioning it like, Hey,
when are you guys going to do this? Like, is that going to happen?
Like, would this be a thing? And, , it just kind of fell into place
that it would be natural for us, , to do. , but what's fun is that
we definitely, like, I could definitely speak towards, you know,
where the actual mountain bike influenced falls into the design of
the bike. , there's a couple things in the, in the bike itself that
really kind of stand out to me.

, you know, one's the head tube angle too, is the compatibility
of the bike. And then three is really the tube selection and some
of the angles on the bike for how those tubes are joined together.
, so we designed the bike. If you look at gravel bikes in general,
like across the spectr , you'll find that most of the gravel bikes
are slightly steeper head, same head to with than our bike. ,
you'll find that most of them have a longer chainstay lanes and
probably lower bottom brackets. , so we used a, a sliding bottom
bracket that will allow you to have, , basically what, what would
be considered like a short cyclocross links change day. , however
you can also slide it backwards and get, you know, as long as some
of the longest gravel offerings out there. So if you want the bike
to be stable and fit really big tires that can do that. If you want
it to be fast and snappy, like a cyclocross bike, , you can do that
as well.

How does that actually work, Vince, on the bottom bracket to
enable your, you to move that crank set?

So the, the crank said stays stationary, but the dropout itself
slides forward and backward.

Gotcha. So it's in the rear in the rear dropout where all that
movement occurs.

Correct. So we use a stainless steel paragon machine works
sliding dropout. , the idea is that, you know, you could make the
bike singlespeed but also, you know, it's really there so you can
add tire clearance, you know, as you move that, , that wheel or
that axle rear word, I know you're going to gain additional
clearance for larger diameter tires as well as well larger, , with
their girth of attire as well. , so really trying to build, , build
compatibility into the bike. And that's something that, , on a
bound like side is like so important. And I think that it's been
kind of a mess and the gravel industry so far that you're seeing
people catch up on him. You know, it was mountain bike builders.
We're, we're having to build a bicycle that will effectively work
in an extremely wide range of terrains, conditions, ride styles, ,
or, or different areas of the country or the world.

You build a road bike, well really you're building a road bike
to ride on pavement. , you know, and you, you're obviously good.
There's going to be some, some variations obviously. , but not like
the level of variations that you'll find a had been bound industry
grab what kind of sits to us, like kind of in between because
you're going to have customers that'll never run anything bigger
than a 32 she tire. And then you'll have people who never run
anything smaller than a 44. , and if you can give them a bike that
can, can, , can not only be compatible, both those things, but also
well with both of those things. , then you've, you've hopefully
giving them a bike that is very versatile and they could ride, you
know, and in Texas, but then also take on a trip and then ride, ,
in the specific northwest or you know, really anywhere in the
country and, , handle a different terrain and be able to do, built
towards that.

Right. That's interesting. It does give people from the road
side a lot more to think about in terms of adjustability. Then
maybe something on the mountain bike side to someone. It might be
more familiar with those type of options.

Yeah, I mean, I'm on a mountain bike, , you know, like on our 29
or for example, you know, you can run everything from a 27.5 inch
tire up to like a two, eight or a 3.0. And then on the 29 side,
people run anything from like a 2.1, two, three, five, two, four to
six and even a two eight on some of the bikes. , so mountain bikers
are used to seeing and kind of expect that level of compatibility
with the bikes. And I think longterm you'll see more gravel riders
like kind of a proving of designs that better also as compatible
for giving him lots of tire options so they can kind of plan for
weather conditions or course conditions are different terrains.

Yeah, absolutely.

Gravel, the gravel, leave it in a given, even in a given state.
I mean it could be completely different depending upon the road
that you're on. So it's not like a, you know, a typical trail
condition where it's pretty consistent throughout a certain, a
geographic location.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And even different times a
year in the same region can, can warn different tire widths.
Speaking of that, Vince, what is, what is that range of tires you
could run? I believe you can run both 760 50 be the terror lingual,
but what are we talking about for entire range?

Yeah. I mean we kind of have a, an optimized, , area, but it'll,
it'll do up to a, a 50 see tire a or a 2.0 on the steel version and
then up to a 2.1 on the titanium version. So the tire's going to
have a little bit more frame clearance from the tire, then the
steel and then , both who work was six 50 be tires or 700 CE. So we
do try to like suggest like 700 between like 32 and 44 is pretty
optimal on the bike and for 600 TB, , you know, 40 to 50 c is
really, really optimal on the bike. And , you know, it's important
to like when you're making a bike that has so much versatility to
also provide some, , you know, context as to like where the bike's
gonna perform. , so you know, we're not in, should making it bike,
that's just meeting like a compatibility standard. We want it to
still be optimized for doing its duty as a, as a race bike.

Yeah. I think that's one of the interesting things as a, as a
gravel bike owner, you really do need to think about what are you
trying to optimize around cause it can, the bikes can feel very,
very different. Even on even the same frame platform. You can make
it feel very different depending on your tire setup and everything
else you have going on. Right. I think I interrupted you a little
bit when you were talking about the head tube angle and your
decisions around there and the net effect of how the VI
candles.

Yeah, for sure. , you know, we, we recognize also the gravel
writers are often going with a little bit wider bar or at least
with a bar with more flair on the bar. And as we're seeing that
happen more and more, we kind of felt like it was an opportunity to
take advantage of, , looking at just like the overall head tube
angle trend in the industry and then maybe going a half degree, ,
or you know, on certain sizes, slacker then, then the norm that you
see. , and it's worked out really well in our favor because , the
bike then to us is a set up, much less like a traditional road bike
where traditional road bikes not really designed to go bombing down
really loose a gravelly downhill chunky terrain and washboard mixed
in. That's, that's more like what sounds like, what about bikes
built for?

, so we're kind of landed is like something a kind of more in
between the two and a, it helps to provide some stability on the
bike, but I'll also to work better with some of those wider bars or
sweet bars. , we certainly see most majority of people still
building the bike, , with about anywhere from like a 90 to 110
millimeters. Stem is typical across all the sizes. Almost all of
our customers do a a hundred or a one 10 in most cases, smaller
sizes, occasionally at 90. , that's pretty typical for us. So we
were still want that bike to be, you know, kind of weight forward
and have a have weighed on that front tire to really be able to
corner it aggressively. , and not just wash out under year or
anything like that. , but we don't want to have to run like a, a
really short stem and along axle or crown to, to make the bike, , ,
you know, feel, feel different, you know?

Right. And have you spent enough time on flared bars to kind of
give our listeners a little bit of understanding of what they are
and what the effect of, , adding them to your bike would be?

Yeah, I mean, , personally I've been riding the eastern, , is 70
acts bars with a 16 degree flair, , for probably a little over a
year now or close to a year. , you know, it to me it definitely
does a couple things. One, if you're a bike packing, you know, it
could obviously just kind of open up a more relaxed hand position.
, but really what it does primarily that I've noticed the most is
it just provides a little bit more of a stable position, , which
than a traditional road bar where you're directly underneath the
hood. ,

it's ability in the drop position. Yeah,

correct. Yeah. The Hood, you're essentially in the same zone.
There's obviously a lot of bars on the market where, you know,
you'll see the hoods kind of at a very nontraditional angle and
then you'll, you'll have a really dramatic sleep in the bars. I
think those can work really well for certain writers and certain
applications. , personally I'm not a huge fan of them. , we do
build with them from time to time. Just as you know, people's
personal fits require that or their intentions for what they want
to do with a bike are, , those are really good options for getting
into like a handlebar bag. You know, where the, you know, you're
getting more of an opening to get to the, to get to the handlebar
role or, or into a harness and have more capacity on the bar. , but
for writing applications, , you know, kind of a more traditional
bar, , with, with some flair, , it was going to be kind of a great
way to go.

, you know, with a 16 degree flare on the bike, I don't really
feel like you're giving up a lot of what you would be giving up on
like a true traditional road bar in terms of like power output, but
you're really increasing the mass stability on the bike and just
getting a little bit more, , leverage really over corners. , and,
and allowing you to not have to run like a, a really long stem
like, , you know, one 20 or one 30, like a, like a more traditional
road bike ticket that weight up on the front of the bike. Right.
Because typically those flares are also going to, , increase the
overall width compared to, , you know, your hood. The hood with at
the bar is really based around.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. I appreciate that. I'm actually,
I'm curious to try a set of flare bars out on my next bike for
sure. So let's, yeah, let's try this. And I've been riding, riding,
you know, more of have traditional road bar since got no flare
whatsoever and I've demoed a few bikes with flares and I think it's
clearly the right way to go for the type of riding that I
enjoy.

Yeah. I think that 16 degree is a great starting point to make
that transition and give, give enough kind of experience to see if
he would want to go further. , but it's not such a huge j p that it
would feel unnatural to someone who's used to riding a regular drop
are.

Well, let's transition a little bit and start talking about
frame materials. Cause I know you work in both steel and titanium ,
so as people are evaluating the selection of one of your frames,
how do you, how do you guide them between those two choices?

, well it's interesting because some companies really positioned
it like one is really clearly better than the other and up their
titanium frame it as a higher quality than the steel frame. It's
really not the case with our company. , both of the bikes are
really at the same quality. It's just the materials themselves are
more expensive on the titanium bike. So it kind of boils down to
obviously price point for certain people. , but it really comes
down to two, the bad quality and kind of what your expectations are
because to have the bike, , perform as, there are a few advantages
on the tie in terms of getting, , additional, , tire clearance on
the bike. But other than that, they're really, , you know,
physically very much, very much the same bike. , in terms of ride
quality between the two, we get this question all the time is, you
know, like how does it tie compared to the steel?

Is it going to be a harsher ride or a stiffer ride? , and it's
interesting because we designed both the bikes to be really
compliant in the situations where you want them to be compliant. ,
but really all of our bikes, including the mountain bikes, they're
all designed to be really powerful platforms that you can still
raison. , and to us, what that means is if you're standing up and
trying to do a sprint on the bike, that you're going to feel like
your efforts are being transferred into the frame, , that you're
not going to feel the bike, , swaying side to side like a noodle or
an ultra light, a steel bike, you know, from, from, , you know,
your days as a road cyclist on old, old steel road bike. , we're
trying to make bikes that are compliant as you're writing them in
kind of rough conditions and then powerful, , for the remainder of
the ride.

, and what you'll kind of feel typically is that the titanium s
obviously going to be a little bit lighter than the steel. It saves
between, you know, 0.75 lbs and a pound, depending upon the frame
size that you're looking at. , especially around the mountain bike,
she'll save, you know, sometimes even more depending on the size of
the gravel bike. Usually about that much though. And what you'll
kind of see is that the titanium kind of has a little bit faster
return to the material. So as you're coming out of a corner and
putting down power on the bike, you know, you'll feel, , you know,
really connected to, to the ground, , because you are getting some
of that compliance in the frame. , but you're going to feel your,
your efforts transferred back into the bike really quickly. ,
whereas on a steel, you know, you're going to hold onto that, ,
more compliance or simple feeling for just a little bit longer. ,
and for some people that could, , that could make the difference in
like a long endurance ride. You know, compared to riding a, , like
a carbon or an al in bike,

two teeth, similar performance across your entire size range.
Are you guys making adjustments to tube diameters and different
details in the tubing

on certain models of bikes? We do on the Terlingua we do on ,
the steel, the different, but sizes, all of the, yeah, all of the
chair language uses same diameter overall, , of tubing. But we do
do different sizes depending on, on the, on the rider says, and
then we also do a different bottom bracket height's a or drops, ,
depending on size as well to kind of be catering more to the
individual sizes that are typical to run a different crank arm
lengths on each of those sizes versus just having one broadly
across the whole lineup.

Gotcha. I'm was always curious with everybody I talk to, to
learn more about the rides that they have out their front door. So
what's the gravel cycling like around Austin

and Austin itself? There's not a ton right here. , but if you
get on a bike and ride in any direction for half an hour, you can
find, so we have an enormous gravel community though and throughout
Texas, really within an hour and a direction, there's literally,
you know, miles and miles of gravel roads to connect together. So
on any given weekend you'll have one to two credible events
happening at the same time. , and there's, there's just a ton of
stuff here to do really. You know, Texas itself just being so rural
and so many areas of it lends itself to having a lot of country
roads and low traffic scenarios to, to get on. So

generally speaking, is that suggest sort of a 700 c by 38 kind
of set up for that kind of riding or would a different tire
selection be?

I mean, it's really very subjective. I mean, we, , we do a
yearly gravel event here that we titled Sponsor, which just
happened last weekend and I wrote it, , and on the road saw, you
know, really every possible tire size out there. Like I wrote, it
was a 32 see on mine too, the same tires. I use my bike whenever
I'd cyclocross. And then I saw other people out there, like a lot
of people with 44, 38. I mean, it's, it's a, everybody is trying to
find what's going to be optimal for them. And that's what's so
interesting about this format too, is that it's not a, there's no
like cut and paste answer where it's like, this is gonna work for
everybody. It's more like you've got to find what's gonna work for
you and get that balance of traction, comfort. And , what's
interesting too is that, you know, , your riding position on the
bike and really dictate how some of the different tires are gonna
perform too. So you'll see a lot of, , gravel cyclists, , setting
up their bikes, like really neutral or more upright sometimes. And
maybe leaning towards using a larger tire to kind of get traction
back up front. And then, you know, typically you'll see writers
that are neutral and you know, with, , with negative drop on the
bars, maybe going with a smaller tire because they don't feel like
they need that connection to keep the attraction up front. ,
there's all kinds of different options.

Yeah. I always feel like there's, you know, there's, there's
gonna be some shortcomings in any set of you have in any given
event, and that's a great thing. So you'll have writers who have
gone big tires all day who finally get there, retribution on some
massive downhill at the end of an event while they're, while
they're staring longingly at someone who's got a super lightweight
700 c by 32 on a climb.

Right. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's definitely moments where
either writers going to be happy to, and the other one, and it's
always, it's always fun to, to reassess what you brought on the way
home from Morocco.

Exactly. Well, Vince, I really appreciate the time and I
encourage everybody listening to go over to the Chumba USA website.
I'll put a link to it in the show notes. The guys do a good job of
putting some videos up there and giving you a flavor of how nicely
all these bikes are, connect, , constructed.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, we definitely appreciate the time and
encourage people to give us a call on chat or shoot me an email. If
you call her email, you'll be talking to me and I'm happy to answer
questions on just about anything on the bike, so, yeah.

Perfect. Thanks, Vince.

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About the Podcast

The Gravel Ride is a cycling podcast where we discuss the people, places and products that define modern gravel cycling. We will be interviewing athletes, course designers and product designers who are influencing the sport. We will be providing information on where to ride, what to ride and how to stay stoked on gravel riding.